If you're the type of person who spends your weekend on Twitter, then you're already well aware of new-media prophet bloviator Jeff Jarvis' #fuckyouwashington campaign: his attempt to make that hashtag trend on Twitter, an expression of our collective anger over the stalled debt-crisis talks. Non-tweeps might even know the story by now, as CBS News' What's Trending blog posted this yesterday morning, followed by Slate's David Weigel.

9 Comments

So I was angry. Watching TV news over dinner — turning my attention from scandals in the UK to those here and frankly welcoming the distraction from the tragedies in Norway — I listened to the latest from Washington about negotiations over the debt ceiling. It pissed me off. I’d had enough. After dinner, I tweeted: 'Hey, Washington assholes, it’s our country, our economy, our money. Stop fucking with it.' It was the pinot talking (sounding more like a zinfandel).

In tweet after tweet, Jarvis chanted "FUCK YOU WASHINGTON" and encouraged his 75,000+ followers to do the same. It was kind of awkward. One of his followers suggested the aforementioned hashtag, and that's when the chant caught on. Before long, fellow-bloviator Jay Rosen (62,000+ followers) was on board. Jarvis and Rosen are like the Jesus and Muhammad of Twitter, so once they'd joined forces, there was no stopping the Twitterverse from grabbingpitchforksandtorches and marching, online, toward Washington, D.C.

Begun on Saturday night, #fuckyouwashington peaked later that night, then surged again on Sunday afternoon — presumably, as news articles about the topic appeared, or perhaps as a result of the Sunday news programs — and is still alive, with several tweets per minute, but petering out. (The topic never did trend on Twitter, apparently, perhaps because the site moderates topics.)

While Jarvis' anger was directed at Washington politicians, some D.C. residents took offense that he hadn't chosen his words more carefully; instead of "Washington," he could have gone with "Congress" or "politicians" or the like. I'll admit I was a little rankled, too, by the hashtag — not because I felt it targeted us in D.C., but because thousands of people on Twitter joined what was, in the end, a rather juvenile protest.

We Love DC editor Tom Bridge got in on it, too. His tweet, and another tweep's response, raised an interesting semantic question. Is it widely assumed that "Washington" connotes the political establishment, and "D.C." the District entire?